106 



GEOLOGIC GUIDEBOOK ALONG HIGHWAY 49 



[Bull. 141 



Fie. 36. House ruin, west of Mountain Pass, DMBS, 233-c-l. 



MOUNTAIN PASS 



FIG. :i7. Tulloch Mill, Knights Ferry, IIAHS li:!7-<>. 



Near the Mountain Pass School, on the south side of the road there is 

 a stone corral made of dry-laid latite boulders (Fig:. 35) derived from 

 the lava cap Table Mountain which stands just north across the highway. 



West of Mountain Pass on a knoll on the south side of the road, the 

 ruins of a house, made of serpentine blocks set in lime mortar, can be seen 

 (Fig. 36). The outcrop is nearby and shows signs of workings. Close by 

 on the same knoll is another and similar stone ruin. 



KNIGHTS FERRY 



Settled by William Knight in 1848, this town on the Stanislaus River 

 soon became a center for local mining and an important way point on the 

 route to the Mother Lode. It is reached via Highway 120 and is located at 

 the edge of the San Joaquin Valley east of Oakdale and west of Chinese 

 Camp. Knight was succeeded by the Dent brothers (brothers-in-law to 

 U. S. Grant), who built the Tullock Mill (Fig. 37) at the east end of town 

 near the famous covered bridge. The brick one-story warehouse was raised 

 in 1852-58 and the stone grist mill buildings were erected in 1862 by 

 T. Vinson, an English stone mason. Vinson built the piers and abutments 

 of the covered bridge in 1862-63. The brown and pink stone used in the 

 Tullock Mill is local lone sandstone quarried in the nearby slopes ; other 

 stones in the main east and south walls are from granite and conglomerate 

 river boulders. 



The use of local lone sandstone is also evidenced in Knights Ferry 

 in the low retaining walls (Fig. 40, left) which line the back streets and 

 alleys. The famous iron jail is perhaps the most unusual one in the Mother 

 Lode district. The Chinese are attributed authorship of the adobe brick 

 houses, remnants of which may be seen south of the road near the jail. 

 Their basement walls are of lone sandstone blocks or rounded river 

 cobble-mud mortar construction. 



Fired brick was used for the old hotel which later became the court- 

 house. The basement excavation and remnants of the walls are all that 

 are left of this building which was erected in 1859. 



LA GRANGE 



La Grange is located south of Highway 120 and west of Coulterville. 

 Leaving Highway 120 and turning south, the motorist will see the low 

 foothill elevations bordering the San Joaquin Valley. At Crimea House, 

 2.5 miles off Highway 120, is a circular stone corral on the east side of the 

 road (Fig. 38) . It was constructed in 1850 with Chinese labor of dry -laid 

 schist blocks and measures about 80 feet in diameter with the walls over 

 two feet thick and five feet high. 



In La Grange proper is a beautifully preserved adobe brick building 

 measuring 45 by 21 feet with walls 10.5 feet high and 18 inches thick. 



